In order for the domestic clothing industry to remain viable in both domestic and world markets, it is important that new methods of manufacture and apparatus be developed to accomplish this end. A recent example of a method for making non-tailored pants is taught in Bowditch U.S. Pat. No. 4,462,118, for "Method of Making a Flat Plain Seam Garment". Untailored pants have front and back rises and inseams, such as those constructed with the method of the previously-mentioned patent. Also, an example of pickup tooling for use in automated material handling systems for clothing is shown in U.S. Ser. No. 614,478, filed May 30, 1984, for "Fabric Pickup and The Like".
Tailored pants are more difficult to make than non-tailored pants, due to the increased complexity of the piece parts of tailored pants that must be assembled. Tailored pants have seams that are enclosed on the outside of both legs (outseams), on the inside of both legs (inseams), from the crotch to the waist in the rear (back rise) and from the crotch to the waist in the front (front rise). Non-tailored pants only have front and back rises and inseams, whereas tailored pants also have outseams. The present inventor recognized the importance of developing better methods and apparatus for constructing and assembling tailored pants.